Sorry it took me so long, but there's finally a new update! You can now activate the Land of Gods mode in free games. In this mode certain events and conditions will make your people worship one of their many gods. Which in turn will make them have special attributes and do specific actions. Like, are your villages constantly flooded? Well, now your people might start following the god of water. Which has the advantage that their homes will no longer downgrade if they're flooded! Although... your people might also start summoning random geysirs.
Or maybe their home is placed on a shady hill and they'll start following the god of light and always carry a lantern around. And build lampposts. And occasionally try to destroy those pesky hills with grenades... Or, you know, maybe your people simply give in to the god of wine and are constantly drunk. (there is a new book in the ingame wiki that contains detailed information about all the different gods)
And for those who just wanna play a bit around with this new mechanic: in Town Planner mode you can of course assign different homes whatever god you want. And see for example how much chaos you can cause when all your people are following the god of noise, constantly causing earthquakes with their screaming.
And speaking of chaos: not everything might be perfectly balanced yet, so if you have any feedback, bugs or just wanna talk with others about the game: feel free to join the discord server! https://discordapp.com/invite/SvNW8bx
Town Planner gets a "Creative" variant
Next to the normal Town Planner mode in free games, there is now also a "Creative" version. In this mode you get the following additional abilities: - Place decorations (including the new lampposts) as well as the newly added walls - Upgrade/downgrade homes - Start wars at the click of a button - As well as a button to increase the population by 10%
And as always, if you wanna hang out with other players and talk about the game, feel free to join the Discord server: https://discordapp.com/invite/SvNW8bx
Island Mode
The new island mode is there! Create beautiful atolls, connect your regions with sand bridges or try building a Netherlands style fig farm below sea level. Or, you know, just fire up the Town Planner mode and see how many earthquakes your islands can survive...
All you gotta do to create such a world is start a free game and check the "Island Mode" box under "Terrain". Using the "Hills Factor" you can also adjust the amount of islands. And speaking of hills: the altitude of buildings does not matter in this mode.
Oh, and just as a reminder for those who may not be aware of it yet: if you wanna hang out and talk with other players about the game, feel free to join the Discord server :) https://discordapp.com/invite/SvNW8bx
Natural Disaster Update
For those who want an additional challenge: turn up the new natural disaster slider (under Free Game > Simulation) and show your people what a powerful god you truly are! Fight wildfires, flood volcanoes or rebuild dykes after an earthquake: these dozen different disasters will certainly keep you busy.
Edit: In Town Planner mode you can now also spawn natural disasters yourself.
Soundtrack now available
If you own the game, you can now download the Tidal Tribe soundtrack for free:
Oh, and in case you haven't seen it yet: the latest updates to the game finally added a day-night cycle (which is now the default setting in free games) as well as the possibility to customize the ethnicities (under the Free Game > Settings tab).
The next update is most probably gonna be a natural disasters special for free games, where volcanoes, earthquakes, geysirs, etc are gonna give you a bit of an additional challenge.
Edit: A selection of songs from the soundtrack is now also on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMDh52mVqD0
Town Planner mode: place homes, factories and little volcanoes
The latest update adds the Free-Game-Special "Town Planner": in this mode you can freely place homes and factories. Oh, and in case you want to destroy a village again: you can also place down a little volcano that'll take care of that... (Tip: a volcano's range and activity depend on its altitude. It can be destroyed again by being flooded.)
In free games you now also have the possibility to add town names to the map.
And finally there's a new "ethnicity intermixing" slider, which decides how intermixed/seperated the ethnicities are when placed on the map.
Letters & Monocultures
Here a list of the recent changes:
- You can now hover faster by double tapping forward (works only in a Free Game though).
- You can read the letter that's inside an NPC's letterbox. Just press Left Shift (or whatever your sprint key is) at a letterbox while in collect mode. (and remember, Nature people don't have letterboxes, so no stalking those!)
- There's a new Free Game special: Monoculture Towns. In this mode every village/region specializes on a single item that they'll craft. So make sure you build huge plantations of the required plant around them! The kids will then take care of delivering items between the villages. (and a little tip: a village's chaos need corresponds to the crafting specialization, so "Show Homes > Chaos Need" shows you all the crafting talents at once)
And for all the new players:
Here's a little timelapse video that can help you get an idea of how to shape the terrain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsSrEbjpTrk
And if you want to join the Discord server, voilà:
https://discordapp.com/invite/SvNW8bx
'Mountain of Zen' Special added + Contest
I've added a special mode to the Free Game: Mountain of Zen. Select this preset and you'll spawn in a little, mountainous world with no waves. Only a fountain in the center. Oh, and the altitude of buildings does not matter. Just relax by guiding a happy little stream through your mountain village, building little paths for your people and turning everything into a flourishing garden.
Perfect for those short, relaxing sessions after a hard day of work! :D And those who like building paths as much as I do. Because well designed paths are kind of necessary with that many mountains and rivers^^
Oh, and I thought it would be time for a community event, so what about a little screenshot contest? Post a screenshot (or even a video!) of your Mountain of Zen world in the Steam Community Screenshot/Video section and the one/ones (depending on how many people participate) I like the best will get a free Tidal Tribe key to give to a friend :) The deadline is Monday, August 5 2019, 18:00 UTC.
So yeah, hope you enjoy that little mode as much as I did during testing :) And as always: if you find any bugs, you can report them in the discussion boards or the Discord:
https://discordapp.com/invite/SvNW8bx
Update: Chaos mode added!
Changelog of the latest update:
- Added the chaos mode to Free Games: you can now activate the chaos mode (the button is under the score) to spice things up a bit! Below you'll find a detailed description of what changes this causes. Generally you'll experience more features (factories, wars, pollution, fires,...) in a shorter period of time / independant from society stats and all that complicated stuff.
- The tile chisel brush is now available from the get-go in Free Games (previously it had to be unlocked in the Story mode). Just head over to the settings tab under the Free Game menu and click the checkbox.
- For those who experience motion sickness: you can now lock the camera by pressing 'c' and move the brush around freely.
P.S. I may be overworked a little bit, so if I screwed something up: you can report all bugs in the Steam discussion boards or the Discord:
https://discordapp.com/invite/SvNW8bx
*** Chaos Mode Description ***
In chaos mode every region has a chaos need (shown on the map under "Show Homes") which needs to be satisfied. If you don't manage to satisfy that need, well...
- Pleasure: If you can't light the fire in their heart, they're gonna light a fire in the woods...
- Hygiene: If you don't give them soap, they forget all about hygiene and start dumping their trash everywhere...
- Fun: If they can't have fun seeing other people fall over, they'll find new fun in making trees fall over...
- Thirst: If you can't provide them with enough healthy water, they'll start drinking alcohol... losing all moral standards... and becoming criminals...
- Shelter: If they no longer have that soothing safety that date mortar provides, they get all panicky, stumble all the time and create potholes everywhere...
Additionally:
Factories are built in certain locations, independant from society stats, as long as there's enough fence wood.
Wars will break out easier, if one ethnicity has a higher need satisfaction that's making the other one jealous.
And finally there's chaos gambling:
If you collect fruits and bring them to a building, some crafted items can magically appear and be distributed among your people! Or... something else might happen...
I thought I'd upload a quick timelapse / tutorial / howto video to demonstrate my approach to shaping the terrain in Tidal Tribe. Just to give you a little inspiration on how to start. Because from what I've seen, a lot of people are making their life a lot harder than it is^^ As a general rule of thumb you want to build a channel towards the back, then build like a little irrigation system that lets the water flow through the terrain, back to the sea.
It also saves time if you concentrate on quantity first and on quality later: just go build lots of lakes to give your NPCs already some fruits to collect, then once that is done, you can check where certain plants are missing and do all the fine-tuning.
And the most important advice of them all: don't worry too much about the details! I know there's lots of graphs and numbers and everything but... most of those are really not that important. I just love statistics far too much, that's why I put them in. Sorry! (should have hid that stuff behind a "I love stats" button...)
